At work, he was the most reliable far left liberal Senator and state Senator.

Well it remains to be seen if he'll govern that way. Some of what I have seen thus far is that he has lost some on the luster that had moistened the panties of the left. He's abandoned the windfall profits tax on oil companies, looks like we'll be in Iraq for at least another year and a half, he's not pushing for the repeal of Bush's irresponsible tax cuts, not sure now what to do about Gitmo, etc.

That Obama used church attendance and membership to obtain the political benefits acruing from it (mostly when he was starting out in Chicago, less so when he ran for President) seems true enough. From O's conduct, it also seems true that the whole thing was never central to his life, certainly not in the way that he suggested it was when the making that suggestion stood to gain him an advantage.

But there is nothing new about any of this, and it is hardly unique to Obama. Reagan was never a regular church-goer, and JFK (and Teddy and the other political Kennedys) have mostly been concerned about keeping up with the the public forms of Catholicism (baptisms, weddings, funerals) but not much else.

Pres. Obama will use a new post-christian leadership style. Remember his announced approach to the world is to be the one who comes not as a dumb red-neck christianist American, but as a citizen of the world able and willing to bear the burden of leading the government of all Mankind. Being a Traditional Guy, I will miss the simple tradition of wisdom our Presidentr recieves from a Christian worship experience. But on the otherhand, since the World Government will need American support to get up and going, then who could be better positioned to serve in that Office than our new post-christian president